When my letter was finished I got leave to go ashore to post
it. Feeling utterly miserable, I had my hair cut; and,
rendered perfectly reckless by my appearance, I consented to
have what was left of it tightly curled with a pair of tongs.
I cannot say that I shared in any sensible degree the
pleasure which this operation seemed to give to the artist.
But when I got back to the ship the sight of my adornment
kept my messmates in an uproar for the rest of the afternoon.
Whether the touching appeal to my mother produced tears, or
of what kind, matters little; it effectually determined my
career. Before my new ship sailed for China, I was home
again, and in full possession of my coveted freedom as a
civilian.
CHAPTER VIII
IT was settled that after a course of three years at a
private tutor's I was to go to Cambridge. The life I had led
for the past three years was not the best training for the
fellow-pupil of lads of fifteen or sixteen who had just left
school. They were much more ready to follow my lead than I
theirs, especially as mine was always in the pursuit of
pleasure.
I was first sent to Mr. B.'s, about a couple of miles from
Alnwick. Before my time, Alnwick itself was considered out
of bounds. But as nearly half the sin in this world consists
in being found out, my companions and I managed never to
commit any in this direction.
We generally returned from the town with a bottle of some
noxious compound called 'port' in our pockets, which was
served out in our 'study' at night, while I read aloud the
instructive adventures of Mr. Thomas Jones. We were, of
course, supposed to employ these late hours in preparing our
work for the morrow. One boy only protested that, under the
combined seductions of the port and Miss Molly Seagrim, he
could never make his verses scan.
Another of our recreations was poaching. From my earliest
days I was taught to shoot, myself and my brothers being each
provided with his little single-barrelled flint and steel
'Joe Manton.' At - we were surrounded by grouse moors on one
side, and by well-preserved coverts on the other. The grouse
I used to shoot in the evening while they fed amongst the
corn stooks; for pheasants and hares, I used to get the other
pupils to walk through the woods, while I with a gun walked
outside. Scouts were posted to look out for keepers.
Did our tutor know? Of course he knew. But think of the
saving in the butcher's bill! Besides which, Mr. B. was
otherwise preoccupied; he was in love with Mrs. B. I say 'in
love,' for although I could not be sure of it then, (having
no direct experience of the AMANTIUM IRAE,) subsequent
observation has persuaded me that their perpetual quarrels
could mean nothing else. This was exceedingly favourable to
the independence of Mr. B.'s pupils. But when asked by Mr.
Ellice how I was getting on, I was forced in candour to admit
that I was in a fair way to forget all I ever knew.
By the advice of Lord Spencer I was next placed under the
tuition of one of the minor canons of Ely. The Bishop of Ely
- Dr. Allen - had been Lord Spencer's tutor, hence his
elevation to the see. The Dean - Dr. Peacock, of algebraic
and Trinity College fame - was good enough to promise 'to
keep an eye' on me. Lord Spencer himself took me to Ely; and
there I remained for two years. They were two very important
years of my life. Having no fellow pupil to beguile me, I
was the more industrious. But it was not from the better
acquaintance with ancient literature that I mainly benefited,
- it was from my initiation to modern thought. I was a
constant guest at the Deanery; where I frequently met such
men as Sedgwick, Airey the Astronomer-Royal, Selwyn, Phelps
the Master of Sydney, Canon Heaviside the master of
Haileybury, and many other friends of the Dean's,
distinguished in science, literature, and art. Here I heard
discussed opinions on these subjects by some of their leading
representatives. Naturally, as many of them were Churchmen,
conversation often turned on the bearing of modern science,
of geology especially if Sedgwick were of the party, upon
Mosaic cosmogony, or Biblical exegesis generally.
The knowledge of these learned men, the lucidity with which
they expressed their views, and the earnestness with which
they defended them, captivated my attention, and opened to me
a new world of surpassing interest and gravity.
What startled me most was the spirit in which a man of
Sedgwick's intellectual power protested against the possible
encroachments of his own branch of science upon the orthodox
tenets of the Church. Just about this time an anonymous book
appeared, which, though long since forgotten, caused no
slight disturbance amongst dogmatic theologians. The
tendency of this book, 'Vestiges of the Creation,' was, or
was then held to be, antagonistic to the arguments from
design. Familiar as we now are with the theory of evolution,
such a work as the 'Vestiges' would no more stir the ODIUM
THEOLOGICUM than Franklin's kite. Sedgwick, however,
attacked it with a vehemence and a rancour that would
certainly have roasted its author had the professor held the
office of Grand Inquisitor.
Though incapable of forming any opinion as to the scientific
merits of such a book, or of Hugh Miller's writings, which he
also attacked upon purely religious grounds, I was staggered
by the fact that the Bible could possibly be impeached, or
that it was not profanity to defend it even. Was it not the
'Word of God'?
